Work automation helps you define tasks and automate their flow according to a pre-defined process. When the workitem is created, it moves through different stages, with a unique status at each stage. Based on the category of work, you can define a worktype each having its own data attributes, and life cycle. When the workitem requires an agent’s attention, the task either routes to an agent like a regular ACD interaction or moves to a common location from which the agent can assign themselves the task. Also, you can set up the automation to capture the events and run a workflow based on the business needs.

To understand the process, consider an insurance house setting up work automation. A customer raises a request to expand their health insurance coverage by sending an email request. Genesys Cloud creates a workitem of worktype Coverage Expansion to track this new request. The workitem begins with an initial status, Screening. During this state, an automated workflow checks the required details and sends an email to the customer to gather the missing details. Once the customer makes the details available, the workitem routes to an agent through a queue and moves to status, Assigned. The agent manages the request and ensures successful resolution within the agreed SLA of five days.

What are the highlights of work automation?

Work automation helps you automate tasks that fit into a pre-defined flow. With work automation, you can:

• Define custom attributes and schemas that are specific to each worktype and tag a workitem to a worktype. 
• Use a dedicated workbin area to park all similar workitems that can later be assigned to agents or automated via workflows. 
• Route the workitems using different routing methods to agents.
• Create workflows for the defined tasks, automate status transitions, and trigger actions upon status transition.
• Create a time-based logic that triggers the auto-status transition to minimize manual intervention.
• Use a visual flow mapper to visualize the workflow of a workitem to analyze and fine-tune the process.
• View a list of workitems and parked items that are not being actively worked.

Where is work automation useful?

You can use work automation different industries and scenarios. Some typical workflows in which you can incorporate work automation are:

• Banking: Loan and credit card application processes.
• Government: Traffic fines and tax collection processes.
• Insurance: Claim and fraud management processes.
• Telecommunication: Onboard new customers, automate billing cycles, late payment fees, and new service request processes.
• Healthcare sector: Appointment management, insurance process coordination, and patient bill tracking processes.

What are the high-level tasks related to work automation?

• Define the work – What is the work and define how to store and manage it. 
• View the work – View the created tasks on both admin and agent dashboards and manage them.
• Automate the work – Create business logic that automates workflow tasks.
• Distribute the work – Allocate the work to agents and choose from various routing methods that suit your needs.
• Analyze the work – Use APIs or performance reports to find more about the work.